to the nice person who brought us our mail

Dear Nice Neighbor,

Thank you for bringing our wrongly delivered mail to our door.  We often get the wrong mail too, but I am lazy and just put it back in the box with a "delivered wrong address" message on it.   You were much nicer than me because you actually brought it right to our door- you went the extra mile to be sure.   I'm not aware of who you are because you quietly slid it into the door and left.  No knock, no doorbell.  I can't say that I blame you, because I'm quite sure that you arrived just as I was blowing my top inside our happy little home.  Chances are, you thought there was a terrible monster inside our house.  And so, along with offering my gratitude for your neighborliness, I also hope to calm your fears.

No monsters here.

Nothing so exciting, actually- just little 'ol me.  However, the two of us tend to be one and the same some days.  Me and the monster, that is.

You see (is is too late for me to try and explain myself?), the girls had been terribly hyper all afternoon.  Terribly.  I'm talking super-duper crazy hyper.  The kind where they couldn't stop laughing and squealing and making an incredible ruckus.  And me?  I'm a certified fun-hater.  It's true that I spent my afternoon trying to bring a halt to all the madness.  Unsuccessfully, obviously.  And I'm pretty sure you may have ventured onto our front porch about the time that the clowns were changing Claire's diaper whilst I was busily stirring supper.  Only it was a super messy diaper.  And they couldn't just change it, but had to be silly and laugh and "ewwwww, gross!!!!" until the messiness (you know what I mean) was all over themselves, Claire, and the carpet.  This is probably where my level-headedness left (what still remained) and my monster-ishness moved in and well. . . you know the rest.  It was somewhere around this point that Kate quit laughing (finally!) and started crying and weeping, "I'm sorry!   I'm only eight years old.  I"m only eight years old."  I will be honest, sometimes I prefer crying over laughing. 

Now the whole ordeal sounds funny, but I will have you know.  Just then it was Not. Funny.  But, yes, you already know that, don't you?

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you thank you, and yes, apologize for my display of Out-Of-Control Mommy.  In the unlikelihood that you ever dare to step foot onto our property again, I would like you to know that I am not always so loud.  Not always so monsterish.  Sometimes (and this is just between you and I), I am even nice to my kids.  In fact, somedays, if the moon and stars are aligned just so, the hyperness doesn't annoy me near as much.  On rare occasions, I step out of my fun-hater mode and actually laugh back.     

You just happened to miss that day.

Thank you for my mail.  May your nightmares soon cease.

Sincerely,
Kelly